And here’s version 2: I want you to come with me to a student’s room at Oxford University in 1977. You open the door, and at first it seems like there’s nobody there. But wait. Over in the corner, there’s a boy lying on the floor, face up, staring at the ceiling. He’s been like that for more than 90 minutes. That’s me. Twenty-year-old me. I am thinking. Hard. I am trying . . . please don’t laugh . . . I am trying to solve the problem of free will. That deep mystery that has stumped the world’s philosophers for at least two millennia? Yup, I’m taking it on. Anyone looking objectively at the
...more
